'Being able to touch my chest, feel comfortable in my body for first time': Elliot Page after breast removal surgery

Juno star Elliot Page, who came out as a transgender man last year, says he collapsed at the premiere afterparty of the 2010 film Inception because wearing a dress and heels to every single event was hampering his mental health.

"It was like a cinematic moment. That night, after the premiere at the afterparty, I collapsed. That's something that's happened frequently in my life, usually corresponding with a panic attack," Elliot said.

He added: "Ultimately, it's every experience you've had since you were a toddler, people saying, 'The way you're sitting is not ladylike, you're walking like a boy?', every aspect of who you are being looked at and put in a box in a very binary system. That's what it leads to."

 

 

 

 

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The actor also shared he can't look back at photos of the 2008 Oscars, when he was nominated for Best Actress for the film Juno, as Ellen Page. Speaking to Oprah Winfrey on her Apple TV+ series The Oprah Conversation, he recalled, "That was a pretty intense time. I remember it felt so impossible to communicate with people how unwell I was because obviously there is so much excitement. The film unexpectedly became a big hit, I became quite known, all these things and I felt I couldn't express the degree of pain I was in."

"I could not look at a photo from that red carpet. People might watch this and say, 'Oh my gosh, this person is crying about the night they went to the Oscars.' That prevents the ability to allow yourself to not just feel the pain but reflect on the pain, to begin to sit down and bring it all up and finally confront all of that," he says.

 

 

 

 

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In the same interview, Elliot also revealed that he no longer feels panic looking in the mirror after breast removal surgery. Page announced that he was non-binary and transgender in December 2020, sharing that he preferred the pronouns "he" and "they".

He went on to share that he had taken another step towards his choice by having surgery to flatten his chest. Page said, "Getting out of the shower and the towel's around your waist and you're looking at yourself in the mirror and you're just like, 'There I am.' And I'm not having the moment where I'm panicked... It's being able to touch my chest and feel comfortable in my body for probably the first time. Tears of joy."

 

 

 

 

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He felt it was important to talk about the experiences to help others going through similar gender identity troubles. "In this time we're in right now, and especially with this horrible backlash we're seeing towards trans people, particularly trans youth, it really felt imperative to do so," Page said to host Oprah Winfrey.

(Inputs from IANS)